Success bolstered by strong performance and client additions by BEN
and Greenlight businesses

August 01, 2018 09:00 AM Eastern Daylight Time

SHERMAN OAKS, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Branded Entertainment Network, which connects global brands to consumers
through the power of popular entertainment, announced today that the
company is continuing its record-breaking year with April-June 2018
being its highest grossing quarter in BEN Group’s history. The company
is on pace to increase its 2018 annual revenue by 37% over its 2017
performance.

Both of the company’s businesses have seen strong performance over the
last three months. BEN,
the entertainment marketing company specializing in brand integration
and influencer marketing, had its highest grossing second quarter yet,
with revenue up almost 50 percent compared to the same quarter in 2017.
Bookings hit similar record highs - Q2 2018 bookings have grown almost
50 percent over the first quarter of the year, more than doubling Q2
2017’s numbers. This record success was supported by the addition of new
clients, including Fruit of the Loom, The Gap, Pillsbury, AARP, Boots
Cosmetics, ADT, Koei Tecmo, Splash Out and Kids II. BEN also renewed
agreements with GoRVing and with the watch brand Armitron, which is
seeing great success from its influencer campaigns.

“The influencer marketing campaign executed by BEN well exceeded all of
our expectations,” said Rachel Fredman, Director Public Relations,
Armitron. “We had a significant uptick in store sessions on armitron.com,
with YouTube driving the most sessions to our site of all social sources
resulting in millions of views. This campaign made a big impact on sales
and more importantly sparked conversation around the Armitron brand.”

The company’s rights clearance and product licensing division Greenlight
also had another successful quarter. In June, BASE Hologram announced
the first worldwide dates for its ground-breaking hologram tour
featuring Maria Callas, with Greenlight acting as the exclusive
licensing representative for the renowned opera sensation’s estate. This
quarter also saw Salesforce extending its license of Albert Einstein’s
name, likeness, and trademarks for the company’s artificial intelligence
platform, Salesforce Einstein. As Salesforce looked to make every
business user smarter and more productive with AI, it sought branding
that is synonymous with ingenuity and transformation. Einstein was a
natural fit.

With a significant shift in how content is consumed and with audiences
rejecting any advertising that disrupts the viewing experience, brand
integration has become increasingly important as it enables marketers to
reach consumers in a more authentic and meaningful way. To this end, BEN
partnered with global media platform The
Drum to publish The
Definitive Guide to Brand Integration during Q2 2018, an
in-depth study of the industry designed to help brands understand how
integrations can have a tangible impact on their business.

“With 35 years of experience in this industry under our belt, we are
continuing to see incredible market success, helping brands capture
consumer attention with creative and engaging brand integration and
influencer marketing strategies,” said Ricky Ray Butler, CEO of Branded
Entertainment Network. “The second half of the year should be even
stronger. We have already started to see results from our investment in
deep learning models and are confident this will drive even stronger
growth for our company.”